Last Call
by DinaLori
Summary: If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would your last night on Earth involve? For John Winchester it was a bar, a bottle of whiskey and a call to an old friend. Set in the SPN episode "In My Time Of Dying." Part of the "Sands of Time" 'verse.


**A/N: **I really don't know what's going on with my muse lately. I have _never_ written this much this fast before. To those of you following my two WIPs, I'll be updating both of them soon. I just had to get these one-shots out of my head before they drove me crazy.

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing having to do with either Highlander or Supernatural. Pity.

Thanks to dnachemlia for the lightning fast beta.

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><p>oooOOOooo<p>

This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

As he sat hidden in a far corner of the bar the quote played over and over in John's mind. Try as he might he couldn't make his whiskey soaked brain remember where he'd heard it or who said it. But it was there and it fit. Reaching for the bottle in front of him, he emptied the last drops of its amber liquid into his glass. _And this is the way John Winchester ends,_ he thought. _Not going down in a blaze of glory, fighting the good fight, but quietly handing himself over to the very demon he'd sworn to destroy._ But he knew he had no choice. Medically there was no way to help Dean and the odds of finding another faith healer were a million to one.

Strangely enough, it wasn't the thought of dying that bothered him. He'd been prepared for that eventuality for going on twenty-three years now. No, it was the fact that he'd be leaving his sons alone to face the future that was killing him. The boys had already been through so much in their short lives, and now everything seemed to be coming to a head. The biggest battle they'd ever faced was just around the corner, and they'd have no one to help them, no one to depend on but each other. But he had to do this. He'd lost so many friends, he'd lost Mary… He couldn't lose his son, too. Not if there was a way to prevent it. Offering up his head on a silver platter was the only way to save Dean.

_Head._ That single word hit him like a bucket of ice water. _Head._ John cursed himself when he realized who Sam and Dean could depend on after he was gone. _I should have thought of it sooner_. Pulling out his cell phone his fingers danced across the numbers from memory. Maybe the boys didn't have to be alone in this after all. Just so long as the other man kept his head...

oooOOOooo

_"I ain't here, so leave a message."_ BEEP!

"Bobby, it's John. I figure you're still on the road, towing the car back to your place. I'm actually glad you're not there. This'd be harder to do if you were. Look, by the time you get this it'll all be over. I know if you were there you'd try to talk me outta it. You'd tell me there's another way, to just hold on until we can find it. But... I can't wait. This is Dean. This is my _son_ we're talking about. I can't risk losing him while we search for another miracle. I found a way and I'm taking it. I have to.

"I know you and I have had our differences over the years, especially where the boys were concerned. It seemed like we were always butting heads over how they should be raised. Looking back... maybe you were right about some stuff. I made a lot of mistakes after Mary died. I made the boys grow up too fast; take on too many responsibilities too soon. You were the one trying to keep them innocent as long as possible. I'm glad they had you to temper the hardness of the hunting life with normal ball playing, movie going kid stuff. I envied you, did you know that? You were the fun uncle who took them to the county fair and camping while I was the one yanking them outta school after school, dragging them all over creation while hunting. You became the father to them that I wanted to be but couldn't. Not as long as that... thing was out there.

"About that last fight we had... I know I said some things. Horrible things. I just want you to know that… I'm sorry. But when I saw that wound heal up like that... Bobby, you scared the hell outta me. I mean... come on. You're a hunter, when have you ever heard of something supernatural _not_ having a deadly price tag attached? That's why I cut you out of our lives and forbid the boys to contact you. You have to understand, back then I didn't have room for shades of gray in my life. Everything had to be black or white; human or supernatural. The idea that someone could be both; could be more than human but still be good... it was just too confusing. Look, your friend Joe explained everything and I know you're not evil. That's why I never hunted you or any of your kind. And that's why I'm sorry for taking you out of the boys' lives. I shouldn't have done that.

"You need to know that I never told Sam and Dean about you. You probably figured that out for yourself when they came to you, but I needed to tell you anyway. They don't know anything about Immortals or Watchers or the Game. What you tell them is up to you, but... I did a pretty good job drilling it into their heads that anything supernatural is to be killed, no questions asked. Now maybe you can make them see those shades of gray that I couldn't, I don't know. That's gonna be your decision. But I need to ask you one thing: whatever you decide, make sure it doesn't take you out of their lives. After today they're gonna need you to be that father figure again more than ever. And I need you to be that as well. There's just one last thing I can do for them, then they'll be on their own. I know what's going to happen now. And it is _killing_ me that I won't be there for them when it does. Bobby, I need you to... to take my place. They're gonna need someone in their corner. Someone not just to help with the hunting, but to support them. To give them some sense of stability when all hell breaks loose. I know you can do that. After a hundred and eighty-four years I'd imagine you've gotten pretty good at weathering all kinds of crap, huh? Do this for me, please? This one last thing.

"Take care of them Bobby. They're your boys now."

oooOOOooo

John strode purposefully down the hospital corridor, each footfall echoing the beating of his heart. He could do this. He had to do this. Sam and Dean had Bobby to watch out for them now. John knew that he'd die to protect them. He stopped abruptly and laughed. He _could_ die for them. Over and over as many times as necessary, as long as he didn't lose his head, he'd be there to protect them. His boys. _Their_ boys.

Taking one last breath, he stepped into the room. What he was doing was all kinds of wrong, but he didn't care. He needed to do this for Dean. For his son. He needed to be a father, just one last time. With a look of grim determination, he placed the Colt on the table and met the demon's yellow eyes with his own.

"Ok."

~~The End~~

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><p><strong>AN 2:** The quote at the beginning is from "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot.

I know that's a very long message John left, but I checked the owner's manual for my old answering machine and it'll record up to four minutes for a message. I timed it and was able to read this out loud in exactly three minutes, fifty-seven point fifty-nine seconds. So it just made it in under the wire.

And yes, I will be writing the fight between Bobby and John soon.

A word about my view on Papa Winchester: John's character has been really ripped to shreds by both the fans as well as the writers on the show. Now, I'm not defending the choices he made in how he raised Sam and Dean. He screwed up. _A lot_. But he knows it and admits in the episodes "Dead Man's Blood," "Salvation" and "In My Time of Dying" that he wanted a different kind of life for his sons. John made his choices out of fear but also out of love. Azazel even acknowledges it in IMToD: "If only your boys knew how much their daddy loved them." And while I'm with Bobby that ten year old Dean should have been tossing a ball instead of shooting a gun, I cannot and will not deny that John loved his boys. He just made some bad decisions about how to express it.


End file.
